Ideal range for sonar only attack on a lone merchant

[commandosolo2009]

Hello skippers,

I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. Just a few moments ago, after 3 mission reloads, I fail to deliver but 1 out of 12 eels to a stupid merchant (yes 12 since 4 of them multiplied by 3 mission saves to just before firing.


The story: While I was inside Shizuka (just west of Tokyo), I found this very ship (a Large Old Split freighter), worth 8k+ tonnes. Problem is, the devs got the spawn inside the grooves or comb-like channels, that you have to be dead on for a magntic boom, which, means that I literally have to be under a Subchaser, in shallow waters, to get the other ships with a rear shot.


So, I decided "hell, we'll get them sooner or later, then, in fury, shot an eel to the chaser, and left with hate gushing out of my eyes..



So, couple minutes later, while sailing to open waters, I get 2 chasers on my back, so I floor the poor electric engine, to get to echolot 119 meters, I order a full stop, pause loading on tube 4, and dive to 100 meters.


I wait for like 6 hours, not getting a single contact, then on my way up, I notice this sonar contact, which sounded aweful slow to be for a warship. Then again, my reliable SO, keeps tracking the chasers far ahead, and I constantly urge him to keep the wheel on the fat chunk coming, he refuses to comply. I order the crew to detain him, and I assume his position. With my limited sonar senses, I open my copilot notebook, start up hydrophone tracker, and sit around a real life hour, studying the target movements, matching the hydrophone receiver with the propellers no less.




With enough data, I find out that the target speed is 5kts, course 99, incoming starboard beam. One more puzzle to figure is the range.
So, I draw an intercept bearing on the map, and wait for him to get in it, so I ping and have his range, problem solved. NOOOOO..

Turns out that once he enters the bearing on my hydrophone, I couldnt just fire. He maybe well close enough, so I fail at first because of this. On trial 2, I use both optical and sonar, only that the stupid sonar wheel turns away from last tracked bearing, thereby wasting precious seconds on bringing it back to bearing, pinging, then fight my way with the mouse in pressing the send range to tdc.

Last trial was THE ****!!! I had everything worked out, but only forgot to enter ship ID, and it's mast height, as well as depth settings for torpedos. Also, on reviewing the shots, I find out that they cross the bow of the ship, even when I get tubes 1 and 4 to a salvo click Right and 3 and 4 to a click left.

Of course something is soo wrong. Is the sonar reliable as optics? or are the optics that bad? And whats the best range for conducting a sonar only attack? My separation from the merchant was 6500 meters

I even set the speed to 6 since he'll floor it on sight of first torpedo.

I need your analysis fellas.


Thanks